Eclampsia or calcium deficiency is an acute life-threatening and possibly lethal condition of pregnant or lactating female animals (most frequently dogs).

Who may suffer from eclampsia?

Calcium deficiency may develop in dogs of any breed or size, regardless of the size of the litter, at any stage of lactation period or, in exceptional cases, before or during whelping.  If calcium deficiency develops during whelping, it causes dystocia or complicated whelping. Hypocalcaemia is most common in dogs of small breeds with large litters.

What causes eclampsia?

Hypocalcaemia commonly develops due to significant loss of calcium via milk or insufficient amount of calcium received with food. The condition develops because calcium leaves the body of the female animal faster and in larger quantities than the organism is able to mobilise from the bones and supply blood with.

What are the symptoms?

The first clinical symptoms include panting and anxiety.

Furthermore, slight tremors, cramps, muscle contractions, stiff and uncoordinated gait develop. The animal may reveal signs of aggression, suffer from excessive salivation, whine, be hypersensitive to stimuli, and confused. The condition may sometimes be characterised by increased thirst and urination, as well as vomiting, increased heart rate, and fever. Deterioration of the condition leads to severe tremors, tetany, and finally, coma and death.

What should an owner do if the symptoms emerge?

If the above described symptoms develop, the owner or keeper has to immediately contact the animal clinic. The dog suffering from eclampsia needs immediate hospitalisation and fluid therapy.

In the clinic:

• An intravenous cannula is placed;
• Blood sample is taken and biochemistry is performed to primarily control calcium level;
• The animal is connected to ECG machine to monitor cardiac function and notice possible irregularities in time;
• The patient receives oxygen;
• The animal is continuously intravenously administered calcium until its level normalises.

NB! It is not efficient to orally administer calcium, as it needs at least 24 hours to absorb, but in case of eclampsia, calcium level has to be raised as fast as possible.

Home care

At home, it is important to continue to administer calcium orally throughout the entire lactation period.

What happens to puppies/ kittens?

It is recommended to wean puppies or kittens from mother’s milk.  The animals younger than one month have to be fed with special milk replacer (avoid feeding milk of other animals!) available in animal pharmacy and large pet shops. The animals older than 1 month may additionally be fed with special puppy/ kitten food. Offspring health condition has to be closely monitored for e.g. vomiting, diarrhoea, loss of appetite, and lethargy.

If it is not possible to wean the offspring, they should not be allowed to suck their mother’s milk during the first 24 hours after emergence of eclampsia, to give the organism of the female animal the time to restore normal calcium level. During this period, milk replacers should be fed to the offspring. After 24 hours, the puppies or kittens may start sucking on their mother, but the condition of the latter has to be closely monitored. Milk replacers may be additionally fed to the offspring. If eclampsia symptoms reoccur, the offspring has to be taken away from their mother and manually fed from the bottle (younger than 4 weeks of age) or entirely weaned of mother’s milk (older than 4 weeks of age).

Prognosis

If the patient has received help immediately after the first eclampsia symptoms emerged and calcium solution has been administered intravenously, the prognosis is usually good and the dog fully recovers.

There exists a high risk of eclampsia reoccurrence during the next pregnancy, and therefore, it is not recommended to continue using these dogs for breeding. If the owner still decides to breed the animal again, it is essential to ensure the diet during pregnancy is diverse and contains appropriate calcium and phosphor ratio (1:1), as well as sufficient amount of vitamin D.